


the patron saints of our blissful imperfections

by noodlefrog



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Vulva (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale has a lot of extra eyes, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, F/F, Face-Sitting, Fluff and Smut, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Insecurity, Monsterfucking, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Canon, Shower Sex, Sort Of, adjusting to a new relationship after six thousand years of pining, fear of being too much, fear of not being enough, finally talking about your problems like adults, the author is gay your honor, you can have a little true form sex as a treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24538981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlefrog/pseuds/noodlefrog
Summary: Aziraphale’s hand slipping down the front of Crowley’s pajama bottoms and bringing her off with ruthless efficiency had been a surprise to both of them. A pleasant surprise.Very pleasant,from Crowley’s perspective. The sex wasn’t the problem. The problem was when Crowley tried to return the favor, Aziraphale had given her a skittish smile and a mumbled excuse about needing to go freshen up. The problem was that Aziraphale had fucked off to the bathroom, leaving Crowley alone on the sofa listening to the shower run, and that she’d done thatevery single timethey’d had sex since then.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 103
Kudos: 429





	the patron saints of our blissful imperfections

**Author's Note:**

> **Content Note:** Crowley comes up with several potential explanations as to why Aziraphale seemingly doesn’t want to be touched. These include shame about sex learned from Heaven, insecurity about her body, and past unpleasant experiences with sex. None of those are what’s happening, and they aren’t described in any detail, but I wanted to give a heads up that those topics are mentioned.  
> 
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> * * *
> 
>   
> This fic was written for the Celestial Biscuit Club's first ever Smut Off, answering the prompt, “A secret is discovered.”

The night that the world failed to end, they’d sat on the floor in Crowley’s plant room passing a bottle of sangria back and forth like an extended kiss, and she’d listened as Aziraphale spilled her soul on the concrete floor. In those still hours between their bus ride back to London and the reckoning they knew waited for them in the morning, in that fragile soap-bubble of peace, a litany of whispered apologies and confessions slipped from the angel’s lips, and although Crowley waited for the rug to be pulled out from under her, for Aziraphale to take back what she’d said, that moment never came.

If she’d been asked even the day before, Crowley would have argued that her heart—a demon’s heart—was by design something shriveled and cold. A thing starved of love and hope for so long it could no longer feel them. It was a misdirection as clumsy handed as anything in Aziraphale’s silly magic act. Look at how she snarls, look at the claws and the fangs. Pay no attention to the soft, bruised thing hiding just behind her ribs.

It had only taken a few words— _I love you so much, my dear, I always have_ —to make Crowley decide to throw that act away. Aziraphale had said the words so quietly, so tentatively, like she had been afraid that Crowley might not want to hear them, and Crowley resolved to never let Aziraphale doubt herself like that again. They had saved the world together, and they had a plan to save themselves. After they were free of their former sides, they would never have to live in the shadows again. They could hold hands in the park, call each other silly names where anyone could hear, and Crowley could spend the rest of her immortal life making sure Aziraphale knew just how deeply she was loved. Crowley had spent thousands of years feeling unloved and unwanted, and even though she hadn’t truly felt that way in a long time—Aziraphale’s words, wonderful as they were, were only a vocalization of something they’d both known for centuries—she refused to let Aziraphale feel that way for even a minute longer.

There had been a real kiss then, soft and chaste with the taste of fruit sweet on their lips. Aziraphale had rested her head on Crowley’s shoulder, and they’d stayed that way until the plant room floor was painted gold with the light of the first dawn of the reborn world.

The months that followed passed in a blur. It took some getting used to, this notion that they could spend time together whenever they wanted with no excuse or pretext for calling for a meeting. Every time Aziraphale held her hand on top of the dinner table, or pressed a kiss to her cheek while they were feeding the ducks, or referred to her as her _partner_ to some interested human, it felt like being chosen all over again. Like Aziraphale was doubling down on the notion that they were on the same side, in this together. Every time, Crowley’s heart had felt like a bird, like the dove her angel had blessed outside the Dowling estate, healed back to trembling life at the touch of a holy hand and made to fly.

It was the kind of life that should have been perfect. Crowley finally had everything she had been longing for, and it felt wrong to question it or complain. She felt almost guilty for letting herself worry like she was, but she couldn’t help herself. There _was_ something wrong, something she couldn’t explain, and she was demon enough to admit—at least to herself—that it scared her.

A few months into their new normal, they’d decided to start having sex. Well, _“decided”_ was probably the wrong way to describe it. That first time had been two weeks ago. They’d been having a bit of a lazy morning, watching a movie in their pajamas on Crowley’s couch, when they’d _decided_ to start kissing. Aziraphale’s hand slipping down the front of Crowley’s pajama bottoms and bringing her off with ruthless efficiency had been a surprise to both of them. A pleasant surprise. _Very pleasant,_ from Crowley’s perspective. The sex wasn’t the problem. The problem was when Crowley tried to return the favor, Aziraphale had given her a skittish smile and a mumbled excuse about needing to go freshen up. The problem was that Aziraphale had fucked off to the bathroom, leaving Crowley alone on the sofa listening to the shower run, and that she’d done that _every single time_ they’d had sex since then.

Crowley had asked about it, of course, but every time Aziraphale brushed her off. _“I’m fine, I only wanted to make you feel good, my dear,”_ she sometimes said, or else that, _“Watching you is all the satisfaction I need.”_ Other times it was, _“Could we later, perhaps?”_ Only “later” never came. There was always some fresh distraction, a new restaurant to try or a book repair emergency (whatever that meant). It was clear that Aziraphale wanted to avoid the topic as much as she wanted to avoid being touched, and Crowley was too afraid to push the conversation.

At first, it had been hard to keep it from making her feel dirty about herself. It had been too easy to wallow in that familiar self-loathing and let herself think that Aziraphale hadn’t wanted a demon’s hands to touch her, that the first time they’d had sex she’d immediately run off to try to wash herself clean. That was how it had looked, at least until Aziraphale had come back an hour later, smiling and pink-cheeked with a towel around her wet hair, and had happily curled back around Crowley on the couch to cover her face with kisses. She’d pulled Crowley into her warm, soft lap to nuzzle the back of her neck where her hair was cropped short like nothing was wrong at all. Crowley didn’t know how to feel about it.

That first time, and every time after that, it was Aziraphale who started things. It was Aziraphale who liked to make Crowley blush and stammer with compliments about her eyes and forked tongue, her tattoo and the scales on her feet. And it was always Aziraphale who came back to her side, affectionate and cheerful and smelling like Crowley’s shampoo, and made her feel wanted again.

It wasn’t down to a lack of desire, that much she knew. Just as Aziraphale could sense the presence of love, Crowley could feel lust. Their mutual attraction had never really been a secret, after all. It had just been something they couldn’t ever act on. A thing they could never talk about. So, yeah. She knew Aziraphale was still attracted to her. Every time Aziraphale’s eyes raked over Crowley’s body, each time she fingered her or ate her out or fucked her with one of the toys they’d picked up from the store next door to the bookshop, Crowley felt lust rolling off the angel in waves. But she couldn’t just _say that._ This kind of conversation required at least a nominal attempt at subtlty. Starting off by saying, _“Hello, love. Remember how I can literally sense when people want to fuck? I know you’re desperately randy every time you slip off after sex. What’s up with that?”_ would probably push Aziraphale into a panic.

It eventually clicked for Crowley that Aziraphale’s problem might not be with being touched by _her,_ but with the idea of being touched _at all._ There were lots of reasons why a person might be hesitant to have a partner touch them, and Crowley spent a few nights scrolling through search results on her phone looking at the different ways the humans approached the issue. It seemed that there were some humans that only wanted to touch during sex and not be touched in return, for whom that was their preference. If that were the case with Aziraphale, it wouldn’t be an issue. Crowley was more than willing to accommodate any preference her angel might have… but there was something furtive about the way Aziraphale was acting, about how she avoided the topic and fled to the safety of the shower, that made her think that there was more to this than Aziraphale was letting on. Something that was upsetting to her.

The most common recurring ideas she encountered during her research were that people might struggle with being touched due to bad past experiences, shame about sex, and dislike of one’s body. Crowley didn’t know if Aziraphale’d had any past experiences with sex at all, but she knew it was possible. All three of those were possible options, really. Heaven had done its best to leave Aziraphale as afraid and ashamed as they could, constantly making her anxious about being a bad angel. Crowley also knew that some of the other angels had liked to make cruel comments about the softness of Aziraphale’s corporation. _Pricks._

The idea that Aziraphale could be pulling away because she’d been hurt, physically or emotionally, turned Crowley’s stomach to think about… but they were on their own side now. That meant that they could help each other openly instead of having to hide behind the pretext of the Arrangement. That meant that if Aziraphale was suffering, she didn’t have to do it by herself. More than that, Crowley wanted to be a person Aziraphale felt safe to share her pain with.

Preparing herself for whatever she might hear, Crowley practiced the conversation in her head and waited for an opportunity to broach the topic again. That opportunity came a few days later, after Aziraphale had coyly asked if Crowley was interested in what she called “a bit of fun”, which had ended up with Crowley bent over her own desk and eaten out until her eyes had crossed.

Then, inevitably, “I’ll be back in just a moment, dear.”

Crowley flipped over to sit on the edge of the desk. She only slid a little bit. “Off to the shower?” Aziraphale gave her a quiet hum of assent and then kissed her. “Mind if I join you? I seem to be a bit, ah…” she gestured vaguely at her lap, at the spit and slick dripping down her thighs and onto the marble, then cracked a grin. “You’re a messy eater.”

Ligur’s chameleon had nothing on how fast Aziraphale changed colors. Within seconds, her cheeks and the tips of her ears were scalding, remarkable for a person who had just gotten finished performing extremely vigorous oral sex on a demon so recently that her cheeks were still wet from it (and maybe her ears, too, Crowley wouldn’t be surprised).

“You—you want to,” Aziraphale stammered, and Crowley could practically taste the lust wafting off of her. “… Shower? With… with me?”

“If that’s alright… yeah. Sounds fun.” She shrugged, keeping her tone light and casual. If Aziraphale told her no, or tried to evade the topic again, she would back off, but she needed to make the offer.

Aziraphale bit her lip and smoothed the fabric of her trousers to stall. Finally, she nodded and said, “Of course, darling. That would be a delight.”

Crowley followed her back to the bedroom, then slipped into the ensuite and left Aziraphale to get undressed on her own. It wasn’t that she’d never seen Aziraphale naked before. Since she insisted on changing clothes the human way, Crowley had seen her undressed numerous times even since thwarting Armageddon. This time, though, Crowley’s concern was that she wouldn’t be able to school her expression into something less lecherous than how she felt and assumed that that kind of distraction probably wouldn’t be helpful.

The shower in her Mayfair flat was one of those massive concrete and glass ones that took up half the room, and it had showerheads on all sides to allow for a person inside to experience what it was like to be lovingly caressed by heated pressure washers from multiple directions at once. Nice for pounding the tension out of sore shoulders. _Really_ nice when she was in the middle of a shed. Crowley cranked up the temperature until there was a nice steam going, stopping short of her normal setting that might be hot enough to instantly boil Aziraphale upon contact, and stepped inside. She washed herself off quickly and without much fuss, hoping to have most of her shower done by the time—

“May I come in?” Aziraphale called, knocking on the door.

Crowley shoved her head under the water to rinse the last of the shampoo out of her close-cropped hair. “Yeah!” She yelled back.

She heard the bathroom door open and close, the quiet padding of bare feet across the tile, and then the glass shower door was sliding open. Aziraphale slipped inside, all curves and softness and pale curly hair, and Crowley did not manage to repress the urge to make shameless elevator eyes at her. It was practically a reflex at this point. She’d spent so long unable to look her fill, having to make do with stolen glances when she thought she could get away with it. Now that they were free to be together, she frequently found herself staring like some kind of a creep.

“Can I wash your hair?” Crowley asked, blurting out the question before she could stop it.

Aziraphale’s eyes flicked away even as those pink lips of hers teased a demure little smile. It was one of her most devastating facial expressions and Crowley was powerless against it. “You spoil me, Crowley.”

There was a wooden shower bench against the back wall. Unwilling to look away, Crowley extended a leg and hooked her foot under the seat to drag it closer. “I do not,” she said, patting the seat. “I just like doing things for you, is all.”

There was a moment’s hesitance, and Crowley couldn’t tell if it was out of habit, a reflection of the old dance they were trying to convince themselves they no longer needed, or if it was a sign of genuine nervousness. Then, Aziraphale had crossed the space between them and settled gracefully atop the bench. Looking over her shoulder at Crowley, her plump, well-manicured hands folded in her lap. For Someone’s sake, she’d even crossed her ankles.

She fetched the bottle of shampoo, concentrating very hard on not doing something stupid like knocking over every bath product on the rack all at once, and moved into position. The way the stool was positioned meant the spray from the showerhead would hit Crowley’s shoulders while she was standing behind Aziraphale. The angel closed her eyes and leaned her head back onto Crowley’s stomach, and Crowley shifted around to the side so that the water could reach to wet her hair. She watched as those white-blonde curls got soaked and turned darker, as they were weighed down and flattened against her angel’s head. Her breath caught at the sight of the rivulets of water streaming over Aziraphale’s breasts and stomach, tracing the same pink lines as her stretch marks.

Aziraphale sat up and Crowley sprang into action, tired of not having her hands on the angel. She squirted shampoo into her palm and began to work it into a lather, alternating between massaging and scratching Aziraphale’s scalp. The moan the angel gave was absolutely indecent and went straight between Crowley’s legs as a pang of arousal. It was made all the worse by the fact that her infernal senses made sure she was very, _very_ aware that Aziraphale was aroused, too. A blush was starting to heat up the pale skin at the back of Aziraphale’s neck, and as she stared at it, Crowley noticed she’d stopped moving her hands. She resumed her gentle scratches and gradually Aziraphale seemed to relax into the touch.

The whole time she was washing Aziraphale’s hair, Crowley was thinking about how to broach the subject of why Aziraphale kept trying to run away after sex. Well. Not the _whole_ time. She also spent some of that time thinking about Aziraphale’s breasts and how nice it might be to get her mouth on one of them, and also some time thinking about that thatch of golden-blonde hair at the apex of the angel’s thighs and how nice it might be to get her mouth _there,_ too. But it was fine. She was used to trying to behave like a functional person around Aziraphale while being maddeningly horny. Crowley was a talented multitasker. So, she washed Aziraphale’s hair, and seethed with lust, and rinsed out the shampoo, and thought about how to ask the angel to please, for once in her life, just tell Crowley directly what it was she wanted.

Then the conditioner was in Aziraphale’s hair, needing the time to soak in, and Crowley moved on to the next phase of her diabolical plan for achieving trust and emotional intimacy. Aziraphale had a weakness for shoulder rubs and Crowley fully intended to exploit that. If she got her nice and loose and comfortable first, maybe she would be less likely to try and shut down a tricky conversation. Crowley rinsed the conditioner off of her hands and started to rub the angel’s shoulders, her thumbs working kneading circles into the muscles at the base of her neck.

“Oh,” Aziraphale murmured, rolling her shoulders into the touch. “My dear, that feels incredible.”

“Good,” Crowley soothed back, pressing harder. “I want to make you feel good. However it is that you want that to be.”

The angel stiffened briefly, then said in a somewhat strained voice, “I know you do, Crowley.”

“Is something wrong, Aziraphale?” she asked. “Between us, or—or with how we’ve been doing things?”

“No,” Aziraphale insisted. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

“You leave,” she said, soft, nothing of an accusation in it. “Every time. I just… want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am. I promise I am. It’s just… Oh, Crowley. It’s complicated. But I’m working on it. I’m trying to make it better.”

“Can you talk to me about it?”

Aziraphale shook her head, water streaming off her scalp and down behind her ears. “No. I think… I just want to fix it.”

“Alright.” Crowley scratched gently along her spine, then began to work her thumbs under the bottom edges of Aziraphale’s shoulder blades. “I won’t press if it isn’t something you want to talk about. But I’m worried.”

The angel sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I know how much you want to touch me,” Aziraphale admitted, her voice the slightest bit rough. “And I don’t want you to—I don’t want you to think I, ah. Don’t. Don’t want you back.” She cleared her throat. “Because I do. I want that so much, Crowley. Have wanted it. Too much. For so long.”

A million questions came to Crowley’s mind at that moment, but the simple honesty of the confession left her stunned and unable to ask a single one.

“I know you know that. I know you can… can sense it. Feel how I feel around you,” she said with a shaky laugh, ducking her head. “But I thought you might like to hear it all the same. It isn’t anything the matter with you. And I am fine. Please, don’t worry about me, my dear. I’m just… trying to get myself to where I can do what we both want.”

Crowley wasn't sure what to make of what she'd been told, but she was willing, at least for the moment, to take Aziraphale at her word when she said she was alright. Her body language seemed relaxed, untroubled, even if she was still maddeningly evasive about the issue. One thing was clear, though. Aziraphale _had_ been right, Crowley definitely could feel the angel’s desire, simmering away beneath the surface.

She pressed a kiss to the angel’s temple, the water momentarily streaming over them both while she was bent over. Aziraphale took one of Crowley’s hands from off of her shoulder, giving it a little squeeze before holding Crowley’s palm to her lips. Crowley felt her breathe, shaky and steadying, warm air ghosting over her skin before Aziraphale let go of her hand.

“Do you want to hear about it?” Crowley asked. “I know you can’t sense the same things I can. Do you want me to tell you what you do to me?”

Aziraphale took another breath, this one sharper, then squared her shoulders. “Tell me.”

“You made me feel so good earlier,” she purred. “You surprise me every time we make love, you know. I think that every time is the best thing I’ve ever felt, and then the next time, somehow, it’s always better. You find some new way to take me apart. I have no idea how you do it.” Crowley worked her hands along the column of Aziraphale’s spine, the angel bowing her head to give her room to move up her neck and closer to the base of her skull. “The things you did with your tongue, angel… I’m going to be dreaming about that a century from now.”

A prickle of energy flickered across Aziraphale’s skin like a current, tingling where it passed under Crowley’s palms. The angel was breathing in quick, shallow little breaths, and looking over her shoulders revealed that she was gripping her own thighs hard enough for her fingers to press divots into her flesh.

It was hard not to get lost in the physicality of the moment. Hot water pummeling her shoulders and sluicing down over her chest, the angel’s strong back under her hands, her own thrum of arousal twining around the scent of lust in the humid air… she gave in to it and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the side of Aziraphale’s neck.

The angel gave a breathy little moan of surprised delight. Encouraged, Crowley kept up her gentle barrage of kisses and licks, the smell of ozone filling her nostrils as her hands crept lower to finally, _finally_ cup the heavy swell of Aziraphale’s breasts.

“Angel,” she murmured, pressing her own narrow frame against the soft rolls of Aziraphale’s back. Aziraphale, for her part, was squirming where she sat on the bench, her knees falling apart just enough to drive Crowley mad. “I love you.”

“I—I love you too,” Aziraphale said, her hands covering Crowley’s and pressing them into the gentle give of her body.

She’d probably heard Aziraphale say those words a hundred times by now, but every time still shook Crowley to her core. There was still some small cynical part of herself that doubted that she deserved it, or that she’d be allowed to keep it, but she told that little voice to fuck off and let her bask a moment. Crowley was in love, damn it, and it was about time she was allowed to enjoy it.

She was also _massively_ turned on, and grateful for the fact that they were in the shower where being soaking wet was to be expected.

Taking Aziraphale’s nipple between two gentle fingertips, she gave a testing squeeze. Aziraphale arched her back and gasped.

“Do that again,” she said.

If Crowley was anything, she was eager to please when it came to her angel. She started a slow rhythm of rubbing, squeezing little touches against both of Aziraphale’s nipples and nuzzled her ear and the side of her face, not caring in the slightest that she was smearing conditioner into her own hair. There was another crackle of power dancing across Aziraphale’s skin, warm and alive, that lightning-strike smell growing stronger, and then—

“You’re glowing,” Crowley said, a joyful little laugh escaping her lips.

Aziraphale tensed. “No. No, that isn’t—I’m sorry.” She rolled her shoulders, broke free of the circle of Crowley’s arms and retreated to the far corner of the shower. Crowley watched her go, watched her cross her arms around her chest like she was trying to hide herself. The luminous shine of her, the light emitting from the skin of her bare shoulders and the water-dark curls atop her head, began to dim.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m _fine._ ”

Crowley straightened up off of the shower floor and started to walk towards the angel, but Aziraphale shook her head hard and held out a hand between them to tell her to stop, the other arm still wrapped tightly in front of her body.

“You need to go,” she urged. _“Please._ I’m sorry.”

She would leave. Of _course_ she would. She'd do whatever Aziraphale asked, whatever she needed. Only...

...Only something was obviously upsetting the angel, and she hated the idea of going off to leave her to deal with it on her own. It felt like abandoning her.

“I'll give you space, I promise, but... do you want me to leave and go back to the office, or is it okay for me to stay here in the bathroom?”

There was a stricken look on Aziraphale’s face, and for a moment Crowley thought she was going to be shooed off, but then the angel’s shoulders sagged. “You can stay, but could you… could you sit outside the shower?”

“‘Course, angel. Anything you want.”

She made it as far as the shower door when Aziraphale called out to her again, her voice barely more than a squeak. “Please don’t look.”

Well. Nothing like _that_ to ratchet Crowley’s curiosity up a couple dozen notches. But she’d do whatever she needed to make Aziraphale comfortable. “Sure. Promise. Here, I can sit on the ground with my back to the glass. Would that be alright?”

Aziraphale bit her lip, then nodded. As Crowley slipped out of the shower door and pulled it closed behind her, she noticed that the steam escaping past her into the bathroom was thicker than it had been, almost cloud-like. She would bet that if she turned to look over her shoulder, the inside of the shower would be completely hidden by it. There was no way she was going to look, though, not after she’d promised. She didn’t bother with a towel, choosing to sit cross-legged on the floor with her back against the glass, droplets of water slowly plinking onto her skin from her hair.

“Is this…” she began, hesitant. “Is what’s happening now the reason you don’t want me to touch you when we have sex?”

There was a pause, then Aziraphale answered her in a small voice. “Yes. It’s… it’s something I’m trying to get over, but… but it’s better if I’m alone when I—when I get like this.”

Crowley’s head swirled with different worst-case scenarios for what _“like this”_ might mean. Was she in pain? Was she afraid? She had never resented the size of her ridiculous shower more than she did in that moment. Aziraphale was all the way on the other side of the room, and all Crowley wanted was to be as close to her angel as she could, to comfort with her proximity even if she couldn’t comfort her with touch.

“I can get past it, if I just—it shouldn’t take long,” Aziraphale continued. “I’m just… I think this time it might be necessary to push through, as it were.” She gave a shaky, self-conscious laugh.

“Push through?”

“Sometimes I can distract myself and it passes on its own. But… oh, Crowley. I’m just so terribly worked up. You must… you must know the effect you have on me.”

Crowley held on to her own bony knees with a grip that could have bruised if her corporation were human in more than just appearance. Aziraphale sounded so distressed in there, tension threaded through her voice. The ozone smell was back, and Crowley could see light from inside the shower reflected in the puddles of water pooled on the floor around her.

“Earlier, when you started to…” Crowley paused, remembering the agitation her phrasing had caused before, and started again. “Was that your halo?”

The glow dimmed. “It was. I’m sorry.” She sounded miserable.

“Don’t. Please, stop telling me you’re sorry. What could you possibly have to feel sorry about?”

“Because it means… it means I’m not in control.”

“Of what?”

“… myself.” Aziraphale gave a long, shuddering exhale. “It’s why we—why I leave. So you never have to see me like that.”

Crowley pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “Wait. Why wouldn’t you want me to see your halo?”

A high, nervous laugh. “You know why, Crowley. It’s not… I don’t exactly look like a painting of an angel.”

Now she was just completely lost. “You do, though. You _literally_ do. Or, uh. I guess… it’s the other way around? The paintings look like you. You sat for so many artists back in the day we can play _spot the Aziraphale_ at museums.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Aziraphale corrected with a sniff, and looking down, Crowley saw that the glow was completely gone now. “There's a reason they had us tell the humans, _Be Not Afraid._ It's because they always are. Who wouldn't be? It's terrifying. We were... we were _supposed_ to be terrifying. To inspire awe. Reverence. Obedience.”

“Do you think… do you think I’m going to be _afraid_ of you?” Crowley asked, incredulous. “It’s you, Aziraphale. Why would I ever be afraid of you?”

“I’m… I’m not _dangerous_ like this. I’m still me. Just… more of me. Too much of me.” She gave a flat laugh. “Too many wings, too many eyes. Entirely too much fire.”

“Angel, there’s no such thing as too much of you.” Months earlier, she might not have dared to say it without hiding it behind a joke, a laugh. Today, it came out soft and open, hinting at the vulnerability in that truth. There really _wasn’t_ such a thing as too much Aziraphale. Anything that she was willing to share, Crowley wanted without exception or hesitation.

There were footsteps inside the shower, the quiet slap of bare feet on wet concrete. Crowley heard the sound of Aziraphale lowering herself down onto the floor, felt through the glass door as her head settled right behind her own. She kept her head facing forward and down, not wanting to chance looking back until Aziraphale had given her the go-ahead.

“I wish it was simple,” Aziraphale said, her voice tantalizingly close to Crowley’s ear even through the glass. “I wish we could be—be _properly_ together, but every time I start to…” She let out a frustrated sigh. “I just get so excited I burst right out of my corporation!”

Crowley could picture in her mind exactly what Aziraphale’s face must look right now, the indignant pout to her lips. She wanted to kiss that frown away.

“Has this always happened or is it new?” she asked.

“It’s an old problem, I’m afraid. I should have… figured out some workaround by now. Should have figured out how to deal with this. I’ve had the time to, it just… there was never anyone I _wanted_ to be with, so it never seemed very urgent to fix it if the only one who was ever going to see me like this was… me.” There was a shuffling sound, as if Aziraphale were drawing her legs up against herself. “I thought… I thought there was no real chance of us ever being free to… but we _did_ , and we’re safe, and… And you can’t even touch me.”

“What do you mean, _can’t?_ ” Crowley’s brain was jumping ahead of her, looking for loopholes, for solutions. “Aziraphale, if you want me to touch you, I will. I will find a way. Even if you’ve—I don’t know. Even if you have some kind of demon killing Holy Water pussy, I’d find a workaround. I mean, they make _gloves_.”

That successfully shocked a laugh out of Aziraphale. Crowley decided to press her advantage.

“I could… do a miracle on one of the dildos, animate it remotely…” Still not breaking her promise not to look, she slapped her palm flat against the glass between her and her angel and began creeping it up the shower door like a caterpillar. Aziraphale jumped at the noise, then let out a squeak and a giggle at the sight of the hand. Once Crowley knew she had seen it, she changed the motion of her wrist, slithering faster like a serpent.

“Oh, you wretched thing,” Aziraphale scolded, barely suppressing further laughter. “If you were in here, I’d give you such a smack…”

“Is that a promise?” Crowley teased, her voice low and silky. She was answered by a slap to the glass directly behind her arse.

They fell into a silence together for a moment, Crowley still grinning even as they settled back into calm. When Aziraphale spoke, it was in that placating, self-deprecating tone she hated to hear the angel use.

“No, no Holy Water anything, I’m afraid. It’s nothing so dramatic as all that, it’s just…” A pause. “It’s not… it’s not very _sexy_ though, is it?”

“I’ll ask you to let me be the judge of that,” Crowley scoffed. Hearing Aziraphale say the word _“sexy”_ was bizarre enough, but she couldn’t help herself from huffing out a laugh at the strangeness of the rest of the statement. Did she really think there was a possibility that Crowley would ever find her less than maddeningly desirable? “Besides. Have you forgotten that I turn into a massive fuckoff snake?”

“Yes… but you’re such a _pretty_ snake.”

There would be times to get flustered by compliments later, and thankfully, Aziraphale would be unable to see the blush heating up Crowley’s cheeks.

“And if I turned into a snake every time we shagged, you wouldn't throw me out on my ear, would you?”

Crowley said it like it was a joke, a throwaway question with an answer that didn't matter to her either way. She expected Aziraphale to say _no_ , of course. That was what Aziraphale did. She was kind. But Crowley had expected some sort of an awkward laugh first, though, or worse, an awkward pause. She expected to maybe get a joke back in return. What she didn't expect was for Aziraphale's answer to come immediately, without hesitation, and with a note of outrage in her haughty voice.

“Of course not! Don't be absurd, Crowley. I would _never.”_

“…Oh.” She cleared her throat, hoping to get rid of the tightness that had appeared there. “Right, um. Well. That’s exactly my point.”

Aziraphale spoke again, only this time her voice was so sincere that Crowley had to put her head down on her knees and close her eyes. “We had to wait so long to be able to be together. I’m never going to push you away again.”

“Yeah, yeah. Exactly,” she said, her voice a bit muffled as she spoke to the floor. “Me… me too.” She swallowed. “Can I… Are you ready to come out of there, d’you think? Or for me to come in?”

“Oh, ummm…” Aziraphale said, sounding very self-conscious again. “Maybe… maybe not yet. I’m still a bit, um. Tense? I can be ready soon, I just… I need a little time to get myself over it, if… if that’s alright with you.”

“S’fine. Take all the time you need.” She crossed her arms between her head and her knees and got comfortable. Besides, Crowley could probably do with some time herself to deal with the emotional surge she’d just experienced, too.

“Right-o,” the angel said, shifting her weight where she’d been leaning against the glass. There was something strained in her voice, in the little steadying exhale she gave, something of too-casual cheer. “Shouldn’t—shouldn’t take more than two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

As the minutes passed, that ozone smell returned, and the light reflected in the water on the floor grew brighter and brighter. For a while, the loudest sound in the bathroom was the water running in the shower. Just under that, the soft in-and-out breathing from their lungs. The thump of Crowley’s own heart in her ears. Every so often, Aziraphale fidgeted inside the shower stall as she did… whatever she did in there to bring herself down from… _from…_

Crowley sat upright. All those times Aziraphale had slipped off after they had sex, she assumed she was… off doing angel stuff. That idea had only solidified when Aziraphale had told her she used that time alone to calm herself down. Crowley had pictured the kind of time-killing things she did in the shower herself—having imaginary arguments, sitting on the floor completely zoned out, holding her mouth open under the water and pretending she was a gargoyle. She pictured some kind of meditation, or some Aziraphale-specific way of making a shower more complicated. Shower snacks. Shower… books?

_Satan,_ but she could be stupid sometimes.

The sweet-spice hum of lust in the humid air. A bitten-off whimper. Light, bright enough to illuminate Crowley’s own skin where it fell on her. Crowley at last connected the last few dots that had somehow evaded her, her understanding of the situation rocketing from the idea in a more general, past-tense sense to one that was much more immediate.

“Aziraphale, are you…” Crowley paused, breathed, ran her palms down the lengths of her thighs. “Are you touching yourself?”

There was a silence that stretched on and on, and then, finally, a small and shaky voice. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Aziraphale no, don’t—that’s ok. That’s fine. Please. Don’t stop on—please don’t feel like you have to stop. I can go if you want.”

“No.” Still quiet, but firmer. “You can, um… you don’t have to leave.”

“…Oh,” Crowley said, feeling heat prickle in her belly. “Could… Would it be alright if I… did the same? Out here, I mean?”

“…Please. I’d… I think I’d like that.”

Feeling her pulse start to quicken, Crowley fought the urge to peek over her shoulder as she spread her legs. She started slow, wanting to drag out this impossible moment as long as she could, rubbing circles into herself with a fingertip on either side of her clit.

“Hey, Aziraphale,” she asked, closing her eyes as the pleasure began to build.

“Yes, love?”

“Can you… can you tell me what you’re doing? Since I can’t see you?”

“I’m… I’m using my fingers. Sometimes I use that vibrator we bought, the waterproof one, but today I just… I’m using my hands.”

Crowley had never lacked for an imagination, and it had gotten her in trouble before in the past. Not today, though. Today, an overactive imagination was exactly what she needed. She could picture Aziraphale’s hands in her mind very clearly, pale and plump, with short, rounded nails painted blush pink with just a hint of shimmer. It was never a hardship to think of her thighs, either, the soft swell of them striped by rows of stretch marks of all sizes, each one a path Crowley longed to trace with her fingers, with her tongue. The natural continuation of that line of thinking, then, would be to imagine those hands on those thighs, gripping a little as she parted them. Reaching between them.

She’d said she used her fingers. She pictured Aziraphale touching herself the same way Crowley was, with just her fingertips on her clit. Rolling, flicking, rubbing. Then, she thought of those fingers drifting lower. Aziraphale’s fingers were shorter than Crowley’s, but also wider. Her own fingers traced the paths she was imagining, two of them sliding inside her body, and she wondered if Aziraphale was stretched open like this just behind her on the other side of the glass.

“Aziraphale,” she gasped, her head thunking back against the shower door. “How do you… how do you like being touched?”

“I’m… I don’t know. I’ve only ever… ever done this alone.”

“Anything you’re curious about, then?” Her other hand joined the first, rubbing her clit with a thumb while she fucked herself on her fingers. The glow from Aziraphale’s halo was reflecting in the slick on her skin. “I want to… I want to know. In case you ever decide you want company. Want it to be good for you.”

She seemed to think about it for a while, breathing in quick little pants that had Crowley squeezing down on her own fingers almost on reflex. “I’ve… I’ve thought a lot about your—your mouth. Your tongue.”

Crowley bit her lip, inhaling through her mouth to keep herself from making some kind of ridiculous noise as visions of eating Aziraphale out filled her mind. “Which one?” She asked. “Normal tongue, or—or snake tongue?”

There was a noise then, somewhere between a yelp and a cry, followed by some kind of rustling collision and what sounded like all of Crowley’s shampoo bottles being knocked over.

“Were those…” Crowley began, her rhythm halting. “Did you just bring your wings out?”

“Crowley?”

“Yes?”

“Did you still want to come back in the shower?”

She was halfway to her feet before she thought to answer verbally. “Yeah, ‘course. Is it okay if I…?”

“…Go on, then.”

As Crowley moved to open the shower door, she caught sight of the opaque cloud of steam once more. It was still impenetrable, but something within it was glowing bright, light bouncing off the water vapor and scattering so that it was impossible to tell where in the stall Aziraphale was, or even what shape she was. The unnaturally dense steam escaped into the bathroom as the door was slid open, leaving Crowley with a sight that left her breathless.

Aziraphale was still vaguely human-shaped, with two arms and two legs and a head arranged in all the usual places, but her skin was emitting so much light that she looked blurred and indistinct. The only details that were still in focus were her eyes, all six of them, burning the pale green-blue of a phosphorus flame. Her wings were definitely out, but there were more of them than Crowley had ever seen, some circling her head and others floating like illusions behind her back. Crowley could tell that she was still inhabiting a physical body, changed though it was—she hadn’t slipped out into her true form, clearly, as that wouldn’t fit in Crowley’s building let alone the shower.

Despite the overwhelming, otherworldly beauty of her, Aziraphale was still holding her arms wrapped around her chest like she was trying to hide herself, and that wouldn’t do at all.

Crowley crossed the shower floor, water pouring over her mostly dried hair and down her back, and kissed her angel. She felt the electric charge of power arc between their lips, tasted lightning on her tongue as the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck began to rise. She kissed her until she felt like she was ready to vibrate out of her skin, then dropped to her knees at Aziraphale’s feet.

“Angel, you never, _never_ need to feel like you have to hide this from me. Any part of you, I want to see it.”

Her eyes crinkled as a lopsided smile spread across her lips. “You old romantic.”

“You never did answer my question,” Crowley teased.

“Oh? Which question is that?”

Crowley stuck out her tongue, then slipped it back inside her mouth. “Did you want that tongue? Or this one?” She licked her lips, feeling her tongue lengthen and split as she did. All of Aziraphale’s half-dozen eyes widened at the sight of it, and Crowley grinned. “That looks like a preference to me.”

Aziraphale nodded, raising a luminous hand to scratch at the back of Crowley’s head. She took that as an opportunity to get closer, leaning forwards until her forehead was resting on the plush swell of the angel’s tummy.

“Anything you want,” she murmured. “Just say the word.”

“Could you… could I have your mouth? Please?”

Crowley snapped her fingers and a padded bathmat appeared on the floor behind them, wide enough to have room for both her own head and Aziraphale’s knees. “Come here,” she said, taking Aziraphale by the hand as she shifted around to lie on the concrete. “Let me take care of you.”

Aziraphale knelt over her on the mat, her movements a little uncertain. Crowley ran her hands up and down her thighs, tracing the soft stripes of her stretch marks, her eyes fixed on the tuft of dark gold curls above her. As the angel settled into a comfortable position, Crowley gave a tentative lick and Aziraphale whimpered.

“Just let yourself relax,” she said, muffled. “Just let go.” Then Aziraphale shifted again, the comforting weight of her settling against Crowley like a blanket, and her tongue was far too busy to be wasting time talking.

Because Aziraphale was a vocal lover and eager to share praise, Crowley was able to quickly discover the kinds of things that made the angel squirm and moan. She seemed to like Crowley’s tongue on her clit, soft and fast and shallow, almost tickling her with rapid flicks like she was a snake tasting the air. However, it was a later experiment—fucking her cunt with her serpentine tongue while keeping up those fast little touches to her clit with a fingertip—that had Aziraphale pitching forward to lean her hands on the shower wall for support.

Crowley kept having to blink water from the shower out of her eyes, but before she could think to miracle it away from her face, it stopped falling on her. She opened her eyes to see Aziraphale looking down at her, cheeks visibly flushed even with how brightly she was glowing, and all of her wings mantled over the pair of them to keep them dry.

As lost herself in pleasure, grinding her hips down in half-voluntary jerks against Crowley’s face, Aziraphale’s control over her corporation began to slip even further. Each time Crowley looked up at her, there was a new fiery eye opening somewhere on her body, some new half-physical wing folding out of space behind her. Even the very geometry of her seemed to be shifting, the planes and angles changing like a kaleidoscope. Crowley could tell now that the light wasn’t emitted by her now-transparent skin, but instead had been coming from within, diffused as it had passed through the flesh that contained it. Now, it was bent and refracted by the prism-shape of her corporation, thrown around the dark concrete shower walls like so many rainbows.

Aziraphale’s thighs pressed in close against Crowley’s ears, muffling the splash of water all around them. Her eyes slipped just out of focus, her vision of the angel above her blurring until it was just thrown light and uncountable points of fire. All she knew was the feeling of Aziraphale on her tongue. The noises she made, which Crowley felt as vibrations rather than heard as sound. It was as though Crowley’s entire world had been reduced down to just touch and taste, no thought spared for anything that existed beyond the place where their two bodies joined.

When Aziraphale came, the hot, silky grip of her spasming around Crowley’s tongue, she cried out with a voice that echoed deep inside Crowley’s bones. As the light flared around them, the tastes of electricity and lust and the human tang of slick combining on her tongue, Crowley felt Aziraphale’s essence slipping free from her corporation. For less than a second, there were infinite bands of flame spinning around the angel in her orbit, but they did not burn. Instead, they _sang,_ calling out to be embraced. That shadow thing at the core of Crowley, that thing she was underneath all the muscle and blood, reached out with its twisting coils and fractal scales and found itself consumed.

Their essences had touched that night, months ago, when they had swapped bodies. It hadn’t been like this. It had been thrilling but short-lived. Fleeting, like sliding past one another in a narrow hallway. This felt like being submerged, like Aziraphale had reached inside of her and took ahold of every piece of her at once, the crackle of her power skating under Crowley’s skin. Given how turned on she’d already been, it wasn’t that surprising that it made her come, but it felt less like being pushed to the peak of her own orgasm and more like being grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hurled bodily over the edge. If she blacked out for a second, that was nobody’s business but her own.

Aziraphale lifted a wobbly knee from over Crowley’s face and shifted to lay down beside her. Crowley wasted no time in wrapping her arms around the angel, squeezing her gently as the last of the glow faded and her body settled back into its familiar shape. She kissed her again, soft and slow, and when Crowley opened her eyes again, it was only the regular two that were looking back at her.

“How was that?” she asked, and in response, Aziraphale nuzzled her cheek.

“Brilliant. Just like you, my dear. I wouldn’t expect anything else.” A faint frown creased between the angel’s eyebrows. “And… and you, my dear? Was that… enjoyable for you?”

“I’m going to want to be doing that for the rest of my life, if you’ll let me.”

Aziraphale gave a shy smile. “It… it’s not always going to be like that. I’m going to figure out how to keep control of my form when we’re making love.”

“Seems like the kind of thing you’d get better at with practice.”

“Oh, yes. I’m going to need quite a lot of practice with it,” Aziraphale said, her voice serious even as she gave Crowley a brazenly flirty bit of side-eye.

“You know, it doesn’t matter to me how long it takes. Or even if this happens every time.” Crowley raised a hand to wipe off her mouth. “It’s like the sexy equivalent of sticking your finger in a light socket.”

As Crowley kissed Aziraphale on the nose, the angel scoffed and said, “Come on, you silly thing. Let’s get dried off. I seem remember you had a bed in this flat that was a lot softer than your shower floor.”

“That I do, love,” she said, helping Aziraphale to her feet and turning off all the showerheads with a gesture of her hand.

They padded back through the bathroom and into Crowley’s bedroom, falling into the sheets together in a tangle of limbs. Neither of them was very sure what they were heading towards, be it a cuddle or a nap or another round of geometry-bending sex, and in the moment, it didn’t seem to matter much. They were finally here, on their own side, with no obligations to anyone but themselves. They had enough time to live their shared life however they liked, time enough to discover and rediscover one another again and again, with no more need of secrets.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is taken from a quote from Guillermo del Toro in his 2018 Golden Globes acceptance speech for _The Shape of Water_ : “Since childhood I've been faithful to monsters. I've been saved and absolved by them because monsters are the patron saints of our blissful imperfections.”
> 
> _Devil Wears Prada_ voice: A wlw? Writing an extended metaphor about overcoming the fear that her sexuality is monstrous and won’t be accepted? Groundbreaking.


End file.
